About 80% of the population of 6.5 million are considered poor

Lebanese school teacher Sara Wissam and her husband were comfortably off before a run on the local currency decimated the value of their salaries and dragged them towards poverty.

The plight of the Beirut couple is common across Lebanon’s middle class, which has been forced to make once unthinkable choices by the worsening economic crisis: cutting back on food, cancelling trips or applying to emigrate for good.

“It used to be that our income lasted a month,” the mother of three told Reuters.

“Now it’s not enough for one trip to the supermarket to buy essentials,” said Wissam, describing how she rarely buys meat, has cut back on cheese and chooses even the smallest treats for her young kids carefully.

Ayman Hadad, a 28-year-old university graduate who found a job in a shop, earns the equivalent of $125 a month and wants to join friends who have emigrated. He has applied to go to Canada. “Enough of Lebanon. We lost hope,” he said.

Lebanon’s descent into financial ruin began in 2019, the result of a poorly managed spending binge that pushed up debt, political paralysis as rival factions squabbled and foreign lenders’ reluctance to bail the country out unless it reformed.

The World Bank ranks the crisis as among the most severe globally since the mid-19th century, devastating a country once seen as a wealthy and liberal outpost in the Middle East before civil war broke out from 1975 to 1990.

About 80% of the population of 6.5 million are considered poor; in September, more than half of families had at least one child who skipped a meal, UNICEF said, compared with just over a third in April.

The currency has lost more than 90% of its value and banks have locked savers out of accounts. By some estimates, state debt reached 495% of gross domestic product in 2021, far above levels that crippled some European states a decade ago.

Adding to people’s frustration is the government’s failure so far to tackle the problems.

Caretaker administrations have led Lebanon for much of the last three years, and since the cabinet quit after a devastating Beirut port blast in 2020, politicians have been fighting over who should lead an investigation into who was to blame.

Meanwhile people see signs of social and economic collapse. The state telecom firm shut the Internet in parts of Beirut for lack of fuel in recent days and an armed man took hostages at a bank demanding access to his trapped savings.

Fridge Empty

Lebanon’s national power grid was creaking before the crisis, with rolling cuts across the country. Now, a bankrupt government can barely run its power plants and homes often receive only an hour of state electricity a day.

Yola al-Musan, who manages a supermarket in Beirut, uses electricity from a shared neighbourhood generator to keep the lights on at home.

When the national grid does fire up, Musan races to switch on the washing machine as only then does she have a strong enough current.

For school teacher Wissam, putting enough food on the table for her family has become tough, even though she and her husband both have steady jobs.

Before the crisis, Wissam and her husband’s combined salary was 3 million Lebanese pounds a month, which at the exchange rate at the time of 1,500 to the dollar was around $2,000.

Now their combined earnings are worth the equivalent of $140, even after Wissam’s modest wage hike. The currency has plummeted to 25,000 to the dollar, sending the price of imported goods and local products soaring.

“Lebanon’s leaders amuse themselves insulting each other and accusing each other of corruption. In fact, they are all corrupt and thieves,” she said, echoing widespread public and international criticism of how the crisis has been handled.

Politicians, some former militia leaders and others from families who wielded influence for generations over the nation’s Christian and Muslim communities, acknowledge corruption exists but deny they are responsible and say they are doing their best to rescue the economy.

But a lengthy and continuing dispute over who should preside over the port blast inquiry has contributed to delays in talks with the International Monetary Fund, seen as vital to unlocking overseas support led by France.

Once-reliable Gulf donors such as Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia already stepped back years ago, voicing anger at Iran’s rising influence in Lebanon through Hezbollah, a group supported by Tehran which has a heavily armed militia.

Najib Mikati, the billionaire prime minister whose post is held by a Sunni under the sectarian political system, has tried to mend Gulf ties. Hezbollah, in turn, stepped up criticism of Gulf states and hosted conferences for domestic opponents of the monarchies.

Meanwhile, the cabinet is expected to hold its first meeting in more than three months on Monday to discuss a draft budget it hopes will ease financial pressures and quell public anger.

“If each one of them donated a small amount of their wealth to the poor, there would be no poor in Lebanon,” said Shadi Ali Hamoud, 39, after returning home to his family from work in a restaurant kitchen. “Look at the fridge, it’s empty.”

The protests were the biggest since October when thousands of people took to the streets in protest against the ruling elite’s corruption, bad governance and mismanagement.

“You have no conscience, you have no morality. Go home! Leave! Resign, Enough is enough,” shouted one of the protesters. “What else do you want? You brought us poverty, death and destruction,” said another.

“Resign or hang,” said one banner.

Soldiers in vehicles mounted with machine guns patrolled the area. Ambulances rushed to the scene. One teenager fainted after being overcome by tear gas.

“Really the army is here? Are you here to shoot us? Join us and we can fight the government together,” a woman yelled.

Tuesday’s blast was the biggest in Beirut’s history. Twenty-one people were still reported as missing from the explosion, which destroyed a large swathe of the city.

The government has promised to hold those responsible to account. But few Lebanese are convinced. Some set up nooses on wooden frames as a symbolic warning to Lebanese leaders.

The prime minister and presidency have said 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, which is used in making fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years without safety measures at the port warehouse.

Economic Meltdown

The explosion hit a city still scarred by civil war and reeling from an economic meltdown and a surge in coronavirus infections.

For many, it was a dreadful reminder of the 1975-1990 civil war that tore the nation apart and destroyed swathes of Beirut, much of which had since been rebuilt.

Some residents, struggling to clean up shattered homes, complain the government has let them down again.

“We have no trust in our government,” said university student Celine Dibo as she scrubbed blood off the walls of her shattered apartment building. “I wish the United Nations would take over Lebanon.”

Many people denounced their leaders, saying none of them visited the site of the blast to comfort them or assess the damage while French President Emmanuel Macron flew from Paris and went straight to the scene to pay his tribute.

Lebanon’s Kataeb Party, a Christian group that opposes the government backed by the Iran-aligned Hezbollah, announced on Saturday the resignation of its three lawmakers from parliament.

Macron, who visited Beirut on Thursday, promised aid to rebuild the city would not fall into “corrupt hands”. He will host a donor conference for Lebanon via video-link on Sunday, his office said. U.S. President Donald Trump said that he will join.

Aoun said on Friday an investigation would examine whether the blast was caused by a bomb or other external interference. Aoun said the investigation would also weigh if it was due to negligence or an accident. Twenty people had been detained so far, he added.

“We can’t afford to rebuild”

Some residents wondered how they would ever rebuild their lives.

Tearing up, Bilal Hassan used his bare hands to try to remove debris from his home. He has been sleeping on a dusty couch besides pieces of splintered glass.

When his three wounded teenage children ran for their lives they left blood stains on the staircase and walls.

“There is really nothing we can do. We can’t afford to rebuild and no one is helping us,” he said, standing beside a large teddy bear that was blown across his home, and a damaged photograph of him and his wife.

Bulldozers ploughed through the wreckage of mangled homes and long rows of flattened cars. Volunteers with shovels streamed through streets.

Officials have said the blast could have caused losses amounting to $15 billion. That is a bill that Lebanon cannot pay after already defaulting on a mountain of debt – exceeding 150% of economic output – and with talks stalled on an IMF lifeline.

For ordinary Lebanese, the scale of destruction is overwhelming. Marita Abou Jawda was handing out bread and cheese to victims of the blast.

“Macron offered to help and our government has not done anything. It has always been like that,” she said. “After Macron visited I played the French national anthem all day in my car.”

Nearly 150 people were killed and more than 5,000 were injured when a large stock of the chemical exploded at Beirut’s port on Tuesday. Dozens of people are missing and up to 250,000 are without habitable homes.

Customs authorities in the south Indian port city of Chennai said a large consignment of the chemical had been stored at a site about 20 km from the city.

“The seized cargo is securely stored and safety of the cargo and public is ensured considering the hazardous nature of the cargo,” they said in a statement late on Thursday.

There was no residential area within 2 km of the freight station where the consignment has been stored, they said.

Ammonium nitrate is used to make fertilizers and explosives, mainly used by the quarrying industry in India.

The consignment was imported in 2015 by Amman Chemicals, a company based in Tamil Nadu state, and was confiscated on arrival due to an alleged violation of import rules, a customs official said.

“The company has been served a show cause notice and a case was booked,” the official said.

P Kumaresan, a partner at Amman Chemicals, declined to comment on the consignment, saying he was in a meeting.

The larger the quantity, the greater the risk it will detonate.

Lebanese authorities said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had been stored for years at the Beirut port without safety measures. That stockpile exploded on Tuesday, killing more than 150 people, injuring thousands and causing widespread damage.

Below are details of ammonium nitrate and expert comment:

• Ammonium nitrate is an industrial chemical commonly used in fertilisers and as an explosive for quarrying and mining. It is considered relatively safe if uncontaminated and stored properly. But it is extremely dangerous if contaminated, mixed with fuel or stored unsafely.

• A large quantity of ammonium nitrate exposed to intense heat can explode. Storing the chemical near large fuel tanks, in bulk and in a poorly ventilated facility could cause a massive blast. The larger the quantity, the greater the risk it will detonate.

“On a scale, this explosion is scaled down from a nuclear bomb rather than up from a conventional bomb,” said Roland Alford, managing director of Alford Technologies, a British company that specialises in disposal of explosive ordnance. “This is probably up there among the biggest non-nuclear explosions of all time.”

• Experts have noted the colour of the smoke and “mushroom cloud” seen in footage of Tuesday’s blast as characteristic of ammonium nitrate explosions.

“Video footage of the incident shows initial white-grey smoke followed by an explosion that released a large cloud of red-brown smoke and a large white ‘mushroom cloud’. These indicate that the gases released are white ammonium nitrate fumes, toxic, red/brown nitrous oxide and water,” said Stewart Walker from the school of Forensic, Environmental and Analytical Chemistry at Flinders University.

“If you make ammonium nitrate explosive, you shouldn’t get that brown plume. That tells me the oxygen balance was not correct – so it wasn’t mixed as an explosive,” he said. “The Beirut blast looks like an accident, unless it was arson.”

Past Accidents

Some of the world’s deadliest industrial accidents were caused by ammonium nitrate explosions:

• In 1921, an explosion of ammonium sulphate and nitrate fertiliser at the Oppau plant in Germany killed 565 people.

• In 1947, a fire detonated around 2,300 tonnes of the chemical aboard a vessel in the U.S. port of Texas City, causing a tidal wave. At least 567 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured.

• In Toulouse, France in 2001, an explosion at an ammonium nitrate depot killed 31 and injured 2,500.

• Ammonium nitrate stored at a Texas fertiliser plant detonated in an explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 in 2013.

• In 2015, explosions at a warehouse storing ammonium nitrate and other chemicals in the Chinese port of Tianjin killed at least 116 people.

• Andrea Sella, professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, said of the Beirut blast: “The idea that such a quantity would have been left unattended for six years beggars belief, and was an accident waiting to happen.”

Use in Bombing

Ammonium nitrate can be mixed with other substances to make a bomb. It was used in Irish Republican Army bombings in London in the 1990s, the 1995 explosion that blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and the 2002 blasts in Bali nightclubs in which more than 200 died. Many of the homemade bombs that were used against U.S. troops in Afghanistan contained ammonium nitrate.

Crooks and Liars

“Our leaders are crooks and liars. I don’t believe any investigation they will do. They destroyed the country and they’re still lying to the people. Who are they kidding?” said Jean Abi Hanna, 80, a retired port worker whose home was damaged and daughter and granddaughter injured in the blast.

Veteran politician Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, called for an international investigation, saying he had “no trust” in the government to find out the truth.

An official source familiar with preliminary investigations blamed “inaction and negligence” for the blast.

A Lebanese security source said the initial blaze that sparked the explosion was caused by welding work.

People who felt the explosive force said they had witnessed nothing comparable in years of conflict and upheaval in Beirut, which was devastated by the 1975-1990 civil war and since then has experienced big bomb attacks, unrest and a war with Israel.

“All hell broke loose,” said Ibrahim Zoobi, who works near the port. “I saw people thrown five or six metres.”

Seismic tremors from the blast were recorded in Eilat on Israel’s Red Sea coast, about 580 km (360 miles) away.

Operations have been paralysed at Beirut port, Lebanon’s main route for imports needed to feed a nation of more than 6 million people, forcing ships to divert to smaller ports.

The tribunal named four Hezbollah members wanted over the killing…

Lebanon’s Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated in 2005. Here are some details about him, his death, and its impact ahead of a verdict by a U.N. backed tribunal on Friday.

Who was Rafik Al-Hariri?

Hariri served as prime minister of Lebanon five times following the 1975-90 civil war. A multi-billionaire who made his fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia, he was the dominant Sunni Muslim politician in Lebanon’s sectarian system.

He became prime minister for the first time in 1992, a rare case of a Lebanese leader who had not fought in the war. He led efforts to rebuild Beirut, particularly the downtown area.

A close friend of the late French president Jacques Chirac, Hariri was known for his international contacts. He was a Saudi passport holder and seen as a symbol of Saudi influence in the post-war years during which Lebanon was dominated by Syria.

The Assasination

On Feb. 14, 2005, Hariri got into his car after visiting the Café de l’Etoile by parliament, where he served as an MP. As his motorcade passed along the seafront corniche, a truck bomb tore through his vehicle, leaving a massive crater and ripping the facades of the surrounding buildings.

Twenty-one people were killed in addition to Hariri by the blast outside the St. George Hotel. The victims included killed Hariri’s bodyguards, pedestrians and the former economy minister Bassil Fleihan.

Tensions ahead of his death

In the year before his assassination, Hariri had been embroiled in a row over the extension of the term of pro-Syria President Emile Lahoud. Under Syrian pressure, the constitution was amended to allow the three-year extension. Hariri had opposed the move but eventually signed the amendment.

In September, 2004, a U.N. Security Council resolution put pressure on Syria over its role in Lebanon. It called for a free and fair presidential election, the withdrawal of all foreign forces, and for the disbandment of armed groups in the country, which included the pro-Damascus Hezbollah.

In October, Hariri quit as prime minister.

The turmoil in Lebanon was set against a backdrop of upheaval in the region, where the power balance had been turned on its head by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

This set the stage for an escalation of rivalry between Shi’ite Iran and its allies on the one hand, including Syria, and U.S.-allied, Sunni-led Gulf Arab states on the other.

The Impact

His assassination ignited the “Cedar Revolution”, mass protests against the Syrian presence in Lebanon. Under growing international pressure, Syria withdrew its troops in April.

Lebanon was reshaped.

Hariri’s son, Saad, led a coalition of anti-Syrian parties known as March 14, which was backed by Western states and Saudi Arabia. Syria’s Lebanese allies, including the Shi’ite Hezbollah, gathered into a rival alliance called March 8. A sectarian divide emerged between Sunnis and Shi’ites.

Lebanon’s two main Christian Maronite leaders, Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea, both returned to political life: Aoun returned from exile and Geagea was released from jail.

The March 14 alliance won a parliamentary majority in June.

Several years of political conflict ensued between March 14 and March 8, much of it focused on the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons. The tribunal into the Hariri killing was also a point of conflict.

The tension culminated in a brief eruption of civil conflict in 2008 during which Hezbollah took over Beirut.

The Investigation

Initially headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, an international investigation got underway in June, 2005. By October, it had issued a report implicating high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese officials. Syria always denied any involvement.

In August, four Lebanese generals who were pillars of the Syrian-dominated order were arrested at the request of Mehlis. They were released nearly four years later without charge after the tribunal said there was not sufficient evidence to indict them. They always denied any role.

Mehlis was replaced in early 2006. The investigation moved slowly. Several key personnel resigned.

Saad al-Hariri, who had blamed Syria for his father’s death, retracted his accusation against Damascus in 2010.

In 2011, the tribunal named four Hezbollah members wanted over the killing. The indictment said they were linked to the attack largely by circumstantial evidence gleaned from phone records. A fifth member of Hezbollah was indicted in 2012.

Hezbollah dismissed the indictment, saying it contained no proof of what it said were fabricated accusations. One of the original four suspects, senior Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine, was killed in Syria in 2016.

Shadowy groups, which Lebanese security officials and Western intelligence say are linked to Hezbollah, launched suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets and kidnapped Westerners…

Four suspects belonging to Lebanon’s armed Shi’ite Hezbollah group have been tried in absentia by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the 2005 murder of former Sunni Muslim prime minister Rafik al Hariri. The verdict is due on Friday.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and is a close ally of Syria, has denied any role in the 2005 bombing. Here is some background on the group:

Tribunal

• Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has accused the tribunal of serving a political agenda — to undermine Hezbollah — and has said it is a tool of its enemies in the United States and Israel.
• None of the four suspects named have been detained by Lebanese authorities. Hezbollah has said they will not be. The indictment said the suspects were linked to the attack largely by circumstantial evidence gleaned from phone records. Hezbollah said the accusations are fabricated.

History

• Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a terrorist organisation, Hezbollah (Party of God) is the most powerful group in Lebanon due to a heavily armed militia that fought several wars with Israel. It grew stronger after joining the war in Syria in 2012 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
• It is both a political movement and guerrilla army, drawing its support from among Lebanon’s Shi’ite population. The group and its allies helped form Lebanon’s current government.
• Hezbollah’s arsenal has been a major point of contention. The group says its arms are needed to deter Israel and, more recently, to guard against Islamist insurgents in Syria.
• Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US, Canada, Germany, Britain, Argentina and Honduras as well as the U.S.-allied, mainly Sunni Muslim Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. The EU classifies Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group, but not its political wing.
• Shadowy groups, which Lebanese security officials and Western intelligence say are linked to Hezbollah, launched suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s. A suicide bombing destroyed the U.S. Marine headquarters and French military barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers. One group, Islamic Jihad, was thought to be led by Imad Moughniyah, a senior Hezbollah military commander killed — possibly by Israel — in 2008 in Syria.
• Argentina blames Hezbollah and Iran for the deadly bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died in 1994 and for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people. Both deny any responsibility.
• Bulgaria accuses Hezbollah of carrying out a bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists in the Black Sea city of Burgas in 2012.

Government

• 2005: Hezbollah entered Lebanese politics more visibly after Hariri’s killing and Syrian troops left Lebanon. A coalition of anti-Syrian factions took power following an election which gave Hezbollah 14 seats in the 128-seat parliament.
• 2006: Hezbollah and its allies quit a government led by Western-backed prime minister Fouad Siniora over the governing coalition’s refusal to give the opposition effective veto power.
• 2008: Hezbollah clashed with domestic foes and briefly seized west Beirut in the worst civil strife since the 1975-1990 civil war, after the government vowed to take action against the group’s military communications network. After mediation, rival leaders signed a deal to end 18 months of political conflict.
• 2011: Syria’s civil war lead to years of political paralysis in Lebanon. In January, the first government of Saad al-Hariri, Rafik al-Hariri’s son, was toppled when Hezbollah and its allies quit over the U.N.-backed tribunal. Six months later, Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced a government dominated by Hezbollah and its allies.
• 2016: Saad al-Hariri, who spent years abroad due to security fears, struck a deal making Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun president, and him premier. Saad al-Hariri’s ties with backer Saudi Arabia, furious at Hezbollah’s expanding role, hit a nadir in 2017.
• 2018: Hezbollah and its allies won parliamentary majority.
• 2019: Protests broke out against a deep economic crisis. Hariri quit in October. Hezbollah and its allies backed Hassan Diab as premier. He formed a new government in January 2020.

Conflicts

• U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and France and adopted in 2004, called for all Lebanese militias to be disbanded and disarmed. Hezbollah is the only militia to keep its arms since the civil war.
• 2012: Hezbollah fighters deployed in Syria to aid Syrian government forces facing a mostly Sunni rebellion against Assad. The group played a major role in beating back the rebellion.
• 2006: Hezbollah crossed the border into Israel, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed others, sparking a five-week war that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
• Hezbollah waged a prolonged military campaign against Israeli forces which occupied south Lebanon until their withdrawal in 2000.